Monday, February 15, 2016

Schumer awakens to Obama counterterrorism cuts

When terrorists attacked unarmed civilians in San Bernadino, liberals said that we need more gun control.

When it became obvious the world became a much more dangerous planet, the left called for reductions in defense spending. 

Now ISIS made it clear they intend to infiltrate our nation and kill as many infidels as they can, To deal with this threat, Obama has decided to reduce funding for counterterrorism programs across the country. He has proposed a $300 million cut in this area.

I don't believe anyone will ever mistake Barack Obama for a Putin or even a Teddy Roosevelt, as James Carafano implied in the July 2015 Daily Signal. Carafano feels that Obama has "whittled America's 'big stick' down to kindling."


In order to assess just how anemic our defense spending has become, there are several ways of looking at it. 

First, we can look at defense spending in terms of Pentagon and Energy Department spending, where the latter is involved with the development of nuclear weapons.  In 2010 and 2011, spending increased somewhat, but every year hence has decreased to a cumulative 15%.

Another way to see it is with the actual National Security spending budget which was 20.1% of the entire federal budget in 2010. But last year it was only 15.9%.

In 2012, the Army had 570,000 soldiers on active duty. Now there are 490,000j soldiers on active duty and by 2018 there will be a further reduction leaving 450,000 soldiers on active duty.

In 1916, the US Navy had 245 active ships. In World War 2 we had 6,768 active ships; and in December 2015, we have 272 active ships, the lowest since 1916. On the other hand, the ships we have are a hell of a lot more combat effective than those back in 1916, but even they are aged and could use replacing.

Our Marine Corps (pronounced 'Core,' Mr. Obama) is running about two-thirds of the battalions it normally needs for day-to-day operations.

But according to Calafano, our most neglected security elements are our strategic forces, specifically, the development and deployment of ballistic missile defenses designed to keep us ahead of our adversaries. Obama has underfunded and delayed these programs, especially the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.

And to kiss up to Russia, Obama ended the missile defense installations in the Czech Republic and Poland last year. So not only has he shown Russia how weak he is, but he has also shown those allies how much they can depend on him. 

Of course we now can see examples of how seriously Putin takes Obama.

Our next president needs to come up with strategic nuclear plans for our defense and it will only come from a conservative administration that knows the adage that in strength there is peace. Carafano has a five principal strategy to do this.

However, President Obama's proposal to reduce funding for counterterrorism programs is outright suicidal--unless you're a president of a country and have armed security to protect you at all times.


Even uber liberals like Chuck Schumer is upset with Obama's $300 million proposed cut and is begging him to reconsider. The current budget is $600 million and the plan is to lower the budget to $330 million.

"These proposed cuts are ill-advised and ill-timed and they must be reversed. End of story," Schumer told the AP in a statement. "In light of recent attacks in Paris and San Bernadino, and the vow by our extremist enemies to launch more attacks on our shores, it makes no sense to propose cuts to vital terror-prevention programs like UASI."

Schumer said counterterrorism programs need adequate funding to protect high-density urban areas like New York City.

"New York City remains terror target number one and the NYPD relies on these programs to keep us safe," Schumer whined.

But Obama doesn't live in New York City. He did when he attended Columbia University as a registered foreign student, but he lives in a protected environment now, where neither he, nor his lovely family have to worry about terrorists bringing harm to them.

Schumer just doesn't get it.


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